Anybody have experience with Seymour Centre Stage XD screens?

[chaosangel]

I'm looking for some advice on the Seymour Centre Stage XD acoustically transparent screen material. Wondering if anybody has first hand experience with this material in their HT? 

 

I have a quite specific requirement where I am trying to get the holy grail of  the largest acoustically transparent screen size possible for my setup, combined with a fairly uncommonly close viewing distance. I have tested the oztheatrescreens acoustically transparent material swatch and I love it, but my seating position is much closer than the average and at my distance I'm finding the weave pattern a bit noticable - to be clear, this is a 100% issue of my seating distance as it is unrealistically close, so I don't see this as a fault of the ozts material, which I think is great.

I spoke to Seymour and based on the numbers they say that their Centre Stage XD weave is tighter, but their published gain is less than that of the ozts material (which if is true in the real world, will be an issue as I am pushing the max screen size my the lumen output of my JVC N7 already). I haev had one recommendation though that the XD material is actually brighter than the ozts material.. so I'm wondering if anybody has 1sst hand experience with these screens?

 

So basically I am trying to get the balance of a bright-as-possible image, with a specific requirement of tight weave so as not to be distracting at my viewing distance and I'm wondering if anybody has compared the Seymour XD material directly to the ozts AT material specifically for brightness, and weave pattern? 

 

My proposed screen size is 150" cinemascape, on the JVC N7, and my seating position is quite close at aprox 250cm from the screen. 

 

Really appreciate advice from anybody that has compared these materials directly (or has recommendations for another AT material for this specific use case). 

I have ordered a Centre Stage XD swatch from the USA but it's been aprox one month and it has not arrived yet, so I thought I'd check in here. 

 

Thanks so much!

 

Edited August 8, 2021 by chaosangel

[hopefullguy]

not giving an opinion on screen size but have you tried the wall first to make sure you can actually see a movie that close? you know like watching tennis from the side.

 

from my experience the cost of material from the states is not the problem but the shipping cost is. i bought milliskin spandex from spandex world for a 145" 2.35:1 A/T screen.

[WasM]

No experience with the screen material but looking at the website they recommend min distance of 3m (10ft) for the XD. I suspect you might notice the weave at 2.5m? 

Their UF material notes a distance of 1.8m (6ft) but gain drops below 1 .

If its of any help my front row is about 2.9m to screen and weave not noticeable.

[hopefullguy]

i thought 1.0 is good for A/T screen.. spandex is .7 usually.

[chaosangel]

6 minutes ago, hopefullguy said:

not giving an opinion on screen size but have you tried the wall first to make sure you can actually see a movie that close? you know like watching tennis from the side.

 

from my experience the cost of material from the states is not the problem but the shipping cost is. i bought milliskin spandex from spandex world for a 145" 2.35:1 A/T screen.

 

Hey! I actually do currently have the setup projecting onto a white wall at the desired size (150") and have my seating in place temporarily as a sort of test room to figure out the dimensions, that's how we came to the seating distance and scrfeen size etc. I know it is close.. but I'm that idiot who sits in Row C at Sydney Imax  Really for me it's is about FOV, hence the seating position vs screen size. I love having the screen pretty much fill to the edge of my periphery. 

 

We are also upgrading from a previous room where we had a 110" 16:9 screen and if we move the seating back further than the fov will actually start to become less than the old setup, and the reason for upgrading the room was to get a bigger image, so we could move back very slightly but really we're kind of in the sweet spot... 

[chaosangel]

10 minutes ago, WasM said:

No experience with the screen material but looking at the website they recommend min distance of 3m (10ft) for the XD. I suspect you might notice the weave at 2.5m? 

Their UF material notes a distance of 1.8m (6ft) but gain drops below 1 .

If its of any help my front row is about 2.9m to screen and weave not noticeable.

 

Yes I have spoken to Seymour and they say that it should be ok down to about 9-10ft, which is just outside of my range, but also that it is kind of subjective as well, I have a feeling that the ozts material would be good from about the same distance.. but then the holes per inch on the XD us about 3x the amount of holes vs the ozts material from my crude measurements.. which is what got me wondering if it would be less noticable.. 

[chaosangel]

10 minutes ago, hopefullguy said:

i thought 1.0 is good for A/T screen.. spandex is .7 usually.

I agree, I thnk 1.0 is quite good for the XD, but ozts measure their material at 1.18, and the swatch of theirs that I have on my wall look about as dim as I think would be acceptable at the screen size.. .

 

But then - I spoke to one person who felt that the XD material about "10% brighter" than the ozts. So.. not sure how the numbers translate to the real world, and how much of this is subjective.. 

[chaosangel]

17 minutes ago, hopefullguy said:

not giving an opinion on screen size but have you tried the wall first to make sure you can actually see a movie that close? you know like watching tennis from the side.

 

from my experience the cost of material from the states is not the problem but the shipping cost is. i bought milliskin spandex from spandex world for a 145" 2.35:1 A/T screen.

Oh and yes, the shipping costs are so high right now! I have a quote from Seymour for the shipping, the material and frame are quite reasonable but the shipping+customs is fairly killer.

[Quark]

Ask for material swatches from both, that should sort it out.

[chaosangel]

3 minutes ago, Quark said:

Ask for material swatches from both, that should sort it out.

Thanks Quark! I actually do have a swatch from ozts which is what I am comparing to and I ordered a swatch from Seymour for the XD about a month ago but it hasn't arrived yet as they go my snail mail, so I thought I'd try my luck here while I wait as I'm kind of stuck in limbo until the swatch arrives

[Quark]

10 minutes ago, chaosangel said:

Thanks Quark! I actually do have a swatch from ozts which is what I am comparing to and I ordered a swatch from Seymour for the XD about a month ago but it hasn't arrived yet as they go my snail mail, so I thought I'd try my luck here while I wait as I'm kind of stuck in limbo until the swatch arrives

 

OK, stuff from the US via USPS is typically taking 4-6 weeks recently, so not much longer to wait.

[chaosangel]

1 hour ago, Quark said:

 

OK, stuff from the US via USPS is typically taking 4-6 weeks recently, so not much longer to wait.

That's super useful to know, thanks!

[oztheatre]

The seymour stuff is a finer weave and would be useful for your application where you're sitting very close. Another metre or so further back it becomes invisible but not at 2-2.5 metres that's awfully close.

[Hagsi]

I had the the XD material for my 130” screen and didn’t notice the weave sitting 3.2m back.  Unfortunately I’ve sold the house so can’t do any tests sorry. No issues with picture quality either.